Spectre Brands

GhostOne-hour delivery of videos, snacks and sundries · New York, New York

Kozmo.com

First delivery center opened in New York in March 1998. Shut down Apr 11, 2001.

“From the Internet to your door in under an hour.” The delivery was free, and that was the problem.

Why ghost: Kozmo.com, Inc. shut down and began liquidating on April 11, 2001, but the name did not stay buried: Yummy Foods, LLC of Los Angeles registered the KOZMO trademark in 2011, relaunched kozmo.com as a grocery delivery site in 2018 and renewed the registrations in 2022. The site did not load when we checked in October 2026.3232527

Kozmo.com science fiction video rental page, December 1999
Video catalogue, Dec 1999
Kozmo.com home page asking for a delivery zip code, April 2000
Home page, Apr 2000Screenshot of an Internet Archive capture of kozmo.com. Shown for commentary.
Kozmo.com closing notice, April 2001
Closing notice, Apr 2001

Two bankers in their twenties started Kozmo.com to bring rented videos to Manhattan apartments by bicycle. Within two years it had Amazon and Starbucks as shareholders, 2,665 employees and a filing to go public. The filing never became an offering. It is still the best record of the business, and it shows a company whose delivery expense, mostly courier pay, was larger than its sales in the last quarter of 1999. This post-mortem is built from that filing, the press of 2000 and 2001, trademark records and the archived website.

The company in four numbers

$232.3M
in cash raised from private investors by March 2000, by the company’s own count1
$7.51
lost for every $1 of sales in 1999 (derived from the IPO filing)1
11
cities served at the peak, in August and September 20001415
1,100
employees laid off when it closed on April 11, 200134

Key findings

  1. The courier cost more than the order. In the fourth quarter of 1999 Kozmo took in $11.92 per order and spent $12.84 per order on delivery staff alone (both derived from its IPO filing). Gross profit per order was $4.72.1
  2. The price was a promise it could not keep. In February 2000 there was no delivery fee and no minimum order. A fee of about $2 on small orders arrived in January 2001, three months before the end.1218
  3. It signed commitments sized for a company it never became. The Starbucks agreement called for $150M over five years. Kozmo’s sales in the year before it signed were $3.5M.119
  4. The IPO window closed with the filing on the table. The registration was filed on March 21, 2000 and withdrawn on August 18, with no shares sold.12
  5. The name outlived the company. A Los Angeles grocer registered KOZMO in 2011 and relaunched the site in 2018 with a $35 minimum and a $5.99 delivery fee.232425

Post-mortem No. 018 · Every figure links to a numbered source · Derived figures, estimates and unverified claims are labeled

The story

Free delivery, in under an hour, to anyone who asked

Kozmo did what it promised. Customers loved it, and almost every observer who looked at the arithmetic said the same thing: each delivery cost money, and the orders were too small to pay for it.

Chapter 1 of 6

3,700

registered customers at the end of 1998

Kozmo.com video rental catalogue page, captured December 1999
The science fiction shelf of the video catalogue, with orange ticks for titles in stock. Internet Archive capture of December 1, 1999; some images in the capture are missing.27

Apr 1997 – 1998 · Videos by bicycle

Two bankers, a warehouse and a web page

Joseph Park and Yong Kang founded Kozmo in 1997. Park had been an analyst at Goldman, Sachs; Kang had worked in media finance at Société Générale. They were 28 and 27 at the end of 1999.1 CNET later reported that they were former college roommates who had the idea on a night when they wanted videos and snacks and wished someone would bring them.4

The company was incorporated in New York in April 1997 and spent its first year raising money and hiring. Its first investors paid 21 cents a share in November 1997. It began taking orders in March 1998, when it opened its first distribution center in New York City.1

The first product was rented videos. Sales in 1998 were $155,000, of which $108,000 was rental income, and the company ended the year with 3,700 registered customers and a loss of $813,000.1

Chapter 2 of 6

101,234

registered customers on December 31, 1999

Commercial · 1999Kozmo.com commercial A 36-second spot uploaded in 2017 by a collector who dates it to 1999. We could not confirm the year. Kozmo’s filing says its cable television advertising began in 1999.130 Watch on YouTube

1999 · Five cities

From 3,700 customers to 101,234

In 1999 Kozmo added music, books, magazines, food and convenience items to the videos, and opened in Seattle in June, San Francisco and Boston in September and Washington, D.C. in November.1 Each market was served from one or more warehouses of about 10,000 square feet in low-rent areas. Orders went out by van, car, scooter or bicycle. The couriers were called Kozmonauts.1

The customer count rose from 3,700 to 101,234 in twelve months, and quarterly orders from 29,231 to 177,581. Sales for the year were $3.5M. The net loss was $26.4M.1

The company began advertising on cable television that year, and marketing and sales expense went from $117,000 in 1998 to $10.3M.1 In November it hired a chief financial officer from Ethan Allen, Gerardo Burdo, and a chief operating officer from Federal Express, Kenneth Trevathan.1

Chapter 3 of 6

$150M

promised to Starbucks over five years

return here
Original illustration of a video drop box in a coffee shop. Not a drawing of a real store or an official asset.

Dec 1999 – Mar 2000 · The money arrives

Amazon, Starbucks and a filing to go public

Investors paid $1.80 a share in October 1999, $4.41 in December and January, and $7.55 in March 2000. Amazon.com put in $60M and became the largest shareholder. By March the company had raised about $232.3M in cash from preferred stock, $113.6M of it since New Year.1

In February 2000 Kozmo signed a five-year agreement with Starbucks. Starbucks would put a Kozmo drop box for returned videos in each of its stores in Kozmo’s markets and promote the service on its cups and napkins. Kozmo would pay Starbucks $15M in 2000, $25M in 2001, $35M in 2002, $35M in 2003 and $40M in 2004.119 In March it agreed to deliver Amazon’s books, music and toys within an hour, and gave Amazon a warrant it valued at $35.7M.1

On March 21, 2000 it filed to sell up to $150M of stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol KZMO, with Credit Suisse First Boston leading. It had 445 salaried and 2,220 hourly employees and said it intended to enter at least ten more markets by the end of the year.1

Kozmo chief executive Joseph Park has said Kozmo will never charge a delivery fee. They don’t require a minimum purchase either.

Greg Sandoval, CNET News, Feb 29, 200018

Chapter 4 of 6

$12.84

spent on delivery staff per order in Q4 1999, against $11.92 of sales per order (derived)

one order, one trip
Original illustration of a typical small order. Not an official asset.

Apr – Dec 2000 · The arithmetic

Eleven cities, a pulled IPO and the first layoffs

The filing that was meant to sell the company also described its problem. In the last quarter of 1999 Kozmo delivered 177,581 orders. Sales were $2.1M, or $11.92 an order. Delivery expense, which the filing says was mostly courier payroll, was $2.3M, or $12.84 an order. Gross profit was $4.72 an order (all three per-order figures derived).1

Kozmo reached Chicago and Atlanta in April 2000 and was in 11 cities by late summer.141517 The same month MSNBC reported that its delivery zones left out most black neighborhoods in Washington, and a civil rights group and two residents sued. The company denied that race played any part. The suit was dismissed at the plaintiffs’ request on September 1, and in December Kozmo and the group announced a joint program, with $125,000 from Kozmo.131417

In August 2000 Kozmo laid off more than 300 people, 275 of them couriers, dispatchers and field staff in New York and Los Angeles. On August 18 it withdrew the IPO filing, citing “unfavorable market conditions.”215 Talks to buy its New York rival Urbanfetch ended in October.1112 By December the founders had handed the company to Burdo.1013

These instant gratification orders -- $15 worth of ice cream and videos -- are inherently small-dollar purchases. But every delivery costs money.

Tim Laseter, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, in Supermarket News, Aug 28, 200015

Chapter 5 of 6

1,100

employees at the close, down from about 2,000 in January

Kozmo.com closing notice headed Thank you for your business
The notice that replaced the store. Rentals not returned by April 16, 2001 were charged at full retail value. Internet Archive capture of April 18, 2001.27

Jan – Apr 2001 · The end

A delivery fee, a catalogue and a locked door

Burdo changed nearly everything the founders had promised. In January 2001 Kozmo began charging about $2 for orders under $25 to $30.1221 It closed Houston and San Diego on January 8 and cut 120 jobs.1011 On February 23 it laid off 60 more, said it would mail 400,000 printed catalogues and announced it would drop “.com” from its name.9 On March 26 it abandoned the Starbucks agreement and began removing 500 drop boxes.8

The company said that the average order had risen from $10 to $25 or $30, that membership had reached 400,000 and that New York, San Francisco and Boston had been profitable in December.7911 Investors had promised $30M in December. One of them later withdrew a $6M commitment.46

A merger with PDQuick, a Los Angeles online grocer, fell through on April 10 when PDQuick’s financing did not arrive. On Wednesday, April 11, 2001 Kozmo said it was “ceasing operations in all nine markets and liquidating its assets.”36 It did not file for bankruptcy. Salaried staff, about a quarter of the 1,100, were offered severance. Hourly workers were not.6

Given more time and more hospitable market conditions, Kozmo would have succeeded in rounding the corner and would have continued to grow.

Gerry Burdo, president and chief executive, statement of Apr 11, 2001, quoted by CNNfn3

Chapter 6 of 6

$35

minimum order when the Kozmo name was relaunched in Los Angeles in 2018

Commercial · 2021“Kozmo.com Delivers Groceries in 30 Minutes!” Published on July 30, 2021 by a channel named Kozmo Dot Com. Its description announces 30-minute grocery delivery in the San Fernando Valley from July 2021. This is the revived brand, not the original company.28 Watch on YouTube

2005 – 2022 · The name comes back

A minimum order, at last

Kozmo’s own trademark application had lapsed in December 2000, before the company did.26 In 2005 its former technology chief, Chris Siragusa, started MaxDelivery in lower Manhattan with the same one-hour promise, a $10 minimum and a $4.95 charge on orders under $50.20

In March 2011 Yummy Foods, LLC, which runs the Los Angeles grocery delivery service Yummy.com, applied to register KOZMO. The registrations were issued that October.25 A placeholder page promising a relaunch appeared at kozmo.com in September 2013.22 The relaunch came on March 21, 2018: next-day delivery of groceries in Los Angeles at warehouse-club prices, with a $5.99 fee and a $35 minimum.2324

In July 2021 the same owner advertised 30-minute grocery delivery under the Kozmo name in the San Fernando Valley.28 The registrations were renewed in March 2022. The Internet Archive’s last capture of the site is dated May 20, 2022, and the site did not load when we checked in October 2026.2527

Timeline

Four years, then a long afterlife: 34 moments

From a New York incorporation to a trademark renewal in Los Angeles. Filter by thread.

All 34 events as a list
  1. Apr 171997
    Corporate

    Kozmo is founded

    Inception date in the company’s financial statements. It is incorporated in New York and reincorporates in Delaware in August 1999.1

  2. Nov1997
    Money

    First outside money

    1,133,332 Series A preferred shares are sold at $0.21 each.1

  3. Mar1998
    Markets & service

    First deliveries in New York

    The first distribution center opens in New York City and the company begins recognizing revenue.1

  4. Dec1998
    Money

    3,700 customers, $155,000 of sales

    The first year of operations ends with a net loss of $813,000. Series B shares are sold at $0.21.1

  5. Jun1999
    Markets & service

    Seattle

    The second market opens.1

  6. Sep1999
    Markets & service

    San Francisco and Boston

    Two more markets open in the same month.1

  7. Oct1999
    Money

    Series D at $1.80

    15.6 million preferred shares are sold. Flatiron Partners and Oak Investment Partners join the board.1

  8. Nov1999
    Markets & service

    Washington, D.C.

    The fifth market opens. Gerardo Burdo joins as chief financial officer and Kenneth Trevathan as chief operating officer.1

  9. Dec1999
    Money

    Amazon invests

    Series E shares are sold at $4.41. Amazon.com buys 13.6 million of them; its total investment is $60M.1

  10. Dec 311999
    Money

    $26.4M lost on $3.5M of sales

    The year ends with 101,234 registered customers and $88.9M of cash.1

  11. Feb2000
    Markets & service

    Los Angeles

    The sixth market opens.1

  12. Feb 142000
    Money

    The Starbucks agreement

    Kozmo agrees to pay Starbucks $150M over five years for drop boxes and promotion in its stores. Starbucks has invested $25M in Kozmo.119

  13. Mar2000
    Money

    Series F at $7.55

    15.3 million shares are issued, 4.0 million of them for agreements and stock, not cash. Kozmo signs a delivery agreement with Amazon.1

  14. Mar 212000
    Corporate

    IPO filing

    Kozmo files to sell up to $150M of stock on the Nasdaq as KZMO. It has 2,665 employees (derived).1

  15. Apr2000
    Markets & service

    Chicago and Atlanta

    Limited service begins in two more cities in the first week of April.17

  16. Apr 112000
    Corporate

    MSNBC report on delivery zones

    MSNBC reports that Kozmo’s Washington delivery area leaves out nearly 350,000 of the city’s 400,000 black residents. Kozmo says it looks only at Internet usage. A lawsuit follows the same month.1417

  17. Aug2000
    Cuts & end

    More than 300 laid off

    275 couriers, dispatchers and field staff in New York and Los Angeles and 30 headquarters employees lose their jobs.15

  18. Aug 182000
    Cuts & end

    IPO withdrawn

    Kozmo asks the SEC to withdraw the registration “because of unfavorable market conditions.” No shares were sold.2

  19. Sep 12000
    Corporate

    Lawsuit dismissed

    The federal discrimination suit is dismissed at the plaintiffs’ request. Kozmo operates in 11 cities and widens its delivery areas in four of them.14

  20. Oct2000
    Corporate

    No deal with Urbanfetch

    Talks to buy the New York rival fall through. Days later Urbanfetch gives up consumer delivery.1112

  21. Dec 52000
    Corporate

    Agreement with the Equal Rights Center

    Kozmo commits $125,000 to Internet access programs in Washington. The announcement names Gerry Burdo as chief executive.13

  22. Dec2000
    Money

    $30M promised

    Investors promise $30M; E-Commerce Times names Flatiron Partners as the source. Kozmo says three markets were profitable in the month.4910

  23. Jan2001
    Markets & service

    A delivery fee

    Kozmo adds a charge of about $2 on orders below $25 to $30.12

  24. Jan 82001
    Cuts & end

    Houston and San Diego closed

    120 jobs are cut, about 6% of the workforce. Nine cities remain.1011

  25. Feb 232001
    Cuts & end

    60 more laid off

    About half are in technology. Kozmo plans a 400,000-copy printed catalogue and says it will drop “.com” from its name on April 1.9

  26. Mar 262001
    Cuts & end

    Starbucks agreement abandoned

    Kozmo says it will remove its 500 drop boxes from Starbucks stores.8

  27. Apr 102001
    Cuts & end

    PDQuick merger collapses

    Talks with the Los Angeles online grocer end when PDQuick’s financing fails to arrive.6

  28. Apr 112001
    Cuts & end

    Kozmo shuts down

    The company stops deliveries in all nine markets, lays off about 1,100 employees and says it will liquidate.347

  29. Sep2005
    The name

    MaxDelivery

    Former Kozmo technology chief Chris Siragusa is running a one-hour delivery service in lower Manhattan, with a $10 minimum.20

  30. Sep 142007
    The name

    A first claim on the name

    EXIM Brands LLC of Evanston, Illinois applies to register KOZMO.COM. The application is abandoned in June 2008.26

  31. Oct 182011
    The name

    Yummy Foods registers KOZMO

    Two registrations, for online grocery retail and for delivery, are issued to the Los Angeles company.25

  32. Sep2013
    The name

    “Relaunching soon”

    A placeholder page appears at kozmo.com.22

  33. Mar 212018
    The name

    Relaunch in Los Angeles

    Yummy.com reopens Kozmo.com as an online warehouse club with a $35 minimum and a $5.99 delivery fee.2324

  34. Mar 12022
    The name

    Registrations renewed

    The USPTO records the renewal of both KOZMO registrations. The Internet Archive’s last capture of the site is dated May 20, 2022.2527

Part 2 of 6

Business

The numbers · Rivals

The money

One audited year, and it is enough

Kozmo never became a public company, so it filed one set of financial statements with the SEC: the IPO registration of March 2000, covering 1997 to 1999. Nothing after December 1999 was ever audited in public. Figures for 2000 and 2001 below come from the press and are marked as such.

1999, quarter by quarter

Revenue against the three largest operating expenses and the net loss, $ millions.

Data table
1999, quarter by quarter
PeriodNet lossRevenueDeliveryMarketing & salesGeneral & administrative
Q1 1999$0.295M$0.25M$0.112M$0.116M$0.075M
Q2 1999$1.366M$0.362M$0.21M$0.315M$0.731M
Q3 1999$6.177M$0.78M$0.662M$2.598M$2.437M
Q4 1999$18.532M$2.117M$2.281M$7.223M$8.308M
Unaudited quarterly results in the Form S-1 of March 21, 2000.1 The company began in March 1998; quarterly figures for 1998 were not published.

What one order brought in, and what it cost to carry

Derived: quarterly revenue, gross profit and delivery expense divided by the number of orders in the quarter.

Data table
What one order brought in, and what it cost to carry
PeriodRevenue per orderGross profit per orderDelivery expense per order
Q1 1999$8.55$4.55$3.83
Q2 1999$8.18$3.66$4.74
Q3 1999$9.98$4.85$8.47
Q4 1999$11.92$4.72$12.84
Derived from the S-1: orders of 29,231, 44,275, 78,118 and 177,581 in the four quarters of 1999; revenue, gross profit and delivery expense as reported.1 The filing says delivery expense is “primarily” payroll for delivery staff. Rent, warehouse staff and marketing are not included, so the full cost of an order was higher.

Cities served: one, then eleven, then none

Markets in operation at the dates a source gives a count.

051015Mar ’98Jun ’99Sep ’99Nov ’99Feb ’00Apr ’00Sep ’00Jan ’01Apr ’0112345051015Mar ’98Sep ’99Feb ’00Sep ’00Apr ’0112345
  1. Mar ’98 · New York The first distribution center opens in March 1998.1
  2. Nov ’99 · five cities Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and Washington are added in six months of 1999.1
  3. Sep ’00 · the peak 11 cities in August and September 2000. The filing had promised at least ten more by year-end.11415
  4. Jan ’01 · the first retreat Houston and San Diego close on January 8, 2001.1011
  5. Apr ’01 · the end All nine remaining markets stop on April 11, 2001.3
Data table
Cities served: one, then eleven, then none
Date (not evenly spaced)Cities
Mar ’981
Jun ’992
Sep ’994
Nov ’995
Feb ’006
Apr ’008
Sep ’0011
Jan ’019
Apr ’010
1998 to February 2000: Form S-1.1 April 2000: MSNBC, which reported Chicago and Atlanta as newly opened.17 11 cities: Supermarket News and CNN/IDG.1415 Nine: E-Commerce Times and The Register.1011 The count of eight in April 2000 is derived (six plus two).

Where $30.0M went in 1999

Cost of revenues plus operating expenses for the year, $ millions. Revenue covered $3.5M of it.

$30.0M Total costs and expenses, 1999
$11.6M 38%General & administrative$10.3M 34%Marketing & sales$3.3M 11%Delivery$2.0M 7%Cost of revenues$2.0M 7%Product development$0.8M 3%Depreciation & amortization$0.2M 1%Non-cash compensation$11.6M 38%General & administrative$10.3M 34%Marketing & sales$3.3M 11%Delivery$2.0M 7%Cost of revenues$2.0M 7%Product development$0.8M 3%Depreciation & amortization$0.2M 1%Non-cash compensation
  • General & administrative. Salaries, rent and utilities for the new warehouses
  • Marketing & sales. Cable TV, print, online, direct mail
  • Delivery. Mostly courier payroll
  • Cost of revenues. Goods sold and rental inventory
  • Product development. Web site and systems
Data table
Where $30.0M went in 1999
Where it wentAmountShareNote
General & administrative$11.6M38%Salaries, rent and utilities for the new warehouses
Marketing & sales$10.3M34%Cable TV, print, online, direct mail
Delivery$3.3M11%Mostly courier payroll
Cost of revenues$2.0M7%Goods sold and rental inventory
Product development$2.0M7%Web site and systems
Depreciation & amortization$0.8M3%
Non-cash compensation$0.2M1%
Statement of operations in the Form S-1.1 The total is derived: $1.997M of cost of revenues plus $28.041M of operating expenses.

What investors paid per share

Price of each round of convertible preferred stock.

Series A · Nov 1997
$0.21
1.1M shares
Series B · Dec 1998 – Jan 1999
$0.21
5.0M shares
Series C · Apr 1999
$1.11
2.5M shares
Series D · Oct 1999
$1.80
15.6M shares
Series E · Dec 1999 – Jan 2000
$4.41
27.2M shares, half to Amazon
Series F · Mar 2000
$7.55
15.3M shares
Data table
What investors paid per share
RoundPrice per shareNote
Series A · Nov 1997$0.211.1M shares
Series B · Dec 1998 – Jan 1999$0.215.0M shares
Series C · Apr 1999$1.112.5M shares
Series D · Oct 1999$1.8015.6M shares
Series E · Dec 1999 – Jan 2000$4.4127.2M shares, half to Amazon
Series F · Mar 2000$7.5515.3M shares
“Certain Relationships and Related Transactions” in the Form S-1.1 The price rose 36 times in 28 months (derived). Shares times price comes to $267.7M (derived); the company put the cash it had actually received at about $232.3M, plus $10.0M of marketable securities.

The Starbucks commitment, measured in Kozmo’s own sales

$150Mowed to Starbucks over five years
=
43 ×Kozmo’s revenue in 1999 ($3.5M; each icon is one year of 1999 revenue)

Derived $150.0M ÷ $3.509M ≈ 42.7, rounded to 43. Payments of $15M, $25M, $35M, $35M and $40M for 2000 to 2004, and 1999 revenue, from the Form S-1.

Data table
The Starbucks commitment, measured in Kozmo’s own sales
Value
owed to Starbucks over five years$150M
Kozmo’s revenue in 1999$3.5M
Ratio43 (derived)
Form S-1.1 Kozmo abandoned the agreement in March 2001.8 How much it had paid by then is not in our sources.

The only three years on file

$ thousands, except customers.

1997 (from Apr 17)19981999
Revenue01553,509
of which rentals01081,706
Gross profit01201,512
Marketing & sales011710,252
Delivery0663,265
Net loss(118)(813)(26,370)
Cash at year end368288,867
Registered customers at year endnot reported3,700101,234
Selected financial data and management’s discussion in the Form S-1.1

After the filing: what the company told the press

400,000
members claimed by early 2001, up from 150,000 a year earlier711
$25–30
average order by the winter of 2000–01, up from $10. Sources differ on the figure711
3
markets the company said were profitable in December 2000: New York, San Francisco and Boston79
$3M
the amount it was reported to be seeking in its last week, to keep New York and Boston open6
Company statements reported by Bloomberg News, The Register, Computerworld and E-Commerce Times.67911 None of these figures was audited or filed with the SEC.

The rivals

The last mile, 2000–2001

Kozmo’s filing listed its competitors as other online retailers, video and convenience stores, and the parcel carriers. The companies that tried to deliver to the door themselves had a bad two years.

Four ways to deliver to the door, as things stood in April 2001

Kozmo and three companies named beside it in the press on the week it closed.

Kozmo

Dead
Closed Apr 11, 2001 One-hour delivery in nine cities. Raised about $232.3M in cash by March 2000.13

Urbanfetch

Left consumer delivery
Out by fall 2000 Kozmo’s head-to-head rival in New York. It gave up consumer delivery days after merger talks with Kozmo ended in October 2000.411

Webvan

Going-concern warning
9 markets The online grocer said in April 2001 that its auditors doubted it could continue as a going concern.5

Peapod

Majority-owned by Ahold
95¢ a share Kept alive by the Dutch grocer Royal Ahold, which owned more than half of it. The shares closed at 95 cents after Kozmo’s news.5
Data table
Four ways to deliver to the door, as things stood in April 2001
CompanyOutcomeStatus in April 2001Notes
KozmoDeadClosed Apr 11, 2001One-hour delivery in nine cities. Raised about $232.3M in cash by March 2000.
UrbanfetchLeft consumer deliveryOut by fall 2000Kozmo’s head-to-head rival in New York. It gave up consumer delivery days after merger talks with Kozmo ended in October 2000.
WebvanGoing-concern warning9 marketsThe online grocer said in April 2001 that its auditors doubted it could continue as a going concern.
PeapodMajority-owned by Ahold95¢ a shareKept alive by the Dutch grocer Royal Ahold, which owned more than half of it. The shares closed at 95 cents after Kozmo’s news.
CNET News, The Register and The Globe and Mail.4511 Webvan is marked dead because it closed later in 2001; that is general knowledge and not from the sources cited here.

I phone my grocer up and they take my order over the phone. One of the cashiers fills up my order and delivers for three bucks. They’re not building warehouses, they are not buying inventory. They are just using what they have.

Kevin Noonan, analyst, Yankee Group, in The Globe and Mail, Apr 13, 20015
The original

Kozmo.com, 2000

Delivery fee
None18
Minimum order
None18
Promise
Under one hour1
Markets
6, with at least 10 more planned1
Goods
Videos, snacks, music, books, magazines1
The relaunch

Kozmo.com, 2018

Delivery fee
$5.9924
Minimum order
$35, and minimum quantities per item2324
Promise
Next day23
Markets
Los Angeles only23
Goods
Groceries, household goods, beer and wine23
CNET News and the Form S-1 for 2000118; Supermarket News and socaltech.com for 2018.2324 “Alive” describes the relaunch as of 2018, not today.

Part 3 of 6

Brand

Commercials & footage · Old website · Brand gallery

Commercials & footage

“You’re going to go out for that.”

Kozmo advertised on cable television from 1999. The title is a line from the “Lucy” spot, as transcribed in its uploader’s description.30 The spots below are third-party uploads; where a date comes only from the uploader, the caption says so. The last one is from the company that owns the name now.

Commercial · 1999Kozmo.com commercial A 36-second spot uploaded in 2017 by a collector who dates it to 1999. We could not confirm the year. Kozmo’s filing says its cable television advertising began in 1999.130 Watch on YouTube
Commercial · 2000Kozmo.com TV spot, “Godfather” Uploaded in 2021 by Media Vision Advertising with no air date. The year shown is approximate: the spot promises free delivery in under an hour, which dates it to before the fee of January 2001.1230 Watch on YouTube
Commercial · 2000Kozmo.com TV commercial, “Lucy” From the same uploader, also undated; the year shown is approximate. The pitch is the one the company was built on: why go out for a magazine, a video or ice cream.30 Watch on YouTube
Commercial · 2000Kozmo.com commercial with Jackie Hoffman A fan upload from 2013, titled by the uploader as a Kozmo.com commercial featuring the comedian Jackie Hoffman. The air date is not given and the year shown is approximate.30 Watch on YouTube
Documentary · 2001e-Dreams, the Kozmo documentary Wonsuk Chin’s feature documentary followed Joseph Park and Yong Kang through the rise and the collapse. This is a third-party upload titled “E Dreams 2001”, not the distributor’s; the distributor’s page is in the sources.29 Watch on YouTube
Commercial · 2021“Kozmo.com Delivers Groceries in 30 Minutes!” Published on July 30, 2021 by a channel named Kozmo Dot Com. Its description announces 30-minute grocery delivery in the San Fernando Valley from July 2021. This is the revived brand, not the original company.28 Watch on YouTube

Videos are embedded from the services that host them and load only when you press play. YouTube embeds use youtube-nocookie.com. Each video belongs to its uploader or rights holder and is shown here for commentary; we do not host any of the files. We found no embeddable television news report of the April 2001 shutdown.

The old website

What customers actually saw

These are screenshots of pages saved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, stored as images. Click one to open the original capture. Captures were found with the Archive’s CDX index in October 2026.27

Screenshot of http://www.kozmo.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce/;display/category?cgrfnbr=13&cgmenbr=1 as archived Dec 1, 1999

Captured Dec 1, 1999

Science fiction, in stock

The New York store’s video shelf. Tabs across the top read videos, DVDs, games, music, books, mags and food. An orange tick marks a title that is in stock.

Several images, including the banner, were not saved by the Archive and show as empty frames.

Open this capture on the Wayback Machine

Text preserved in the archived pages

“videos, games, dvds, music, mags, books, food, basics & more ... delivered in under an hour”
Home page · Apr 8, 2000 capture27
“While we wish it weren’t so, Kozmo has closed operations. We truly enjoyed serving you and sincerely appreciate your enthusiastic support.”
Closing notice · Apr 18, 2001 capture27
“Kozmo is re-inventing the warehouse club online!”
Relaunched site · Feb 28, 2020 capture27

Screenshots of Internet Archive captures, saved as images. The Archive’s captures of the kozmo.com home page from 2000 are zip-code gates like the one above. Some catalogue pages behind the gate were saved in 1999 and 2000, often without their images.27

Part 4 of 6

People

People · Press

The people

Who ran it

Ages and titles are from the IPO filing of March 2000. Later careers are included only where we found a source.

People (7)
Name and roleWhat they didAfterwards
Joseph ParkCo-founder; chairman & CEO, Jul 1997 – 2000

Age 28 in the filing. A former Goldman, Sachs analyst who owned 6,000,000 shares, 7.8% of the company. CNET reported in February 2000 that he had said Kozmo would never charge a delivery fee. He gave up the chief executive’s job during 2000.1418

Co-founded Askville, an Amazon question-and-answer site.21
Yong KangCo-founder; president

Age 27. Previously an assistant vice president in media finance at Société Générale. He owned 4,000,000 shares, 5.2%.1

Listed in 2008 as working in investment banking at Lehman Brothers.21
Gerardo “Gerry” BurdoCFO from Nov 1999; CEO by Dec 2000

Age 34. He came from Ethan Allen, where he had been principal financial officer. As chief executive he introduced the delivery fee, closed two cities and ended the Starbucks agreement, and the closing statement was issued in his name.13413

Kenneth “Skip” TrevathanChief operating officer, from Nov 1999

Age 53. He had spent 15 years at Federal Express. He told Computerworld that the company’s systems had raised orders per delivery run from a little more than one to about 2.2.112

In 2008 he said four cities had been profitable and seven had not.21
Chris SiragusaGroup vice president of technology

Computerworld gives his title as group vice president of technology; CNNMoney later called him the former chief technology officer.1220

Founded MaxDelivery in New York.20
Robert GreeneDirector; Flatiron Partners

A managing partner of Flatiron, he joined the board in October 1999 and defended the model in January 2001: “It’s in its early days.”112

Barnaby MontgomeryCo-founder and CEO, Yummy.com

He relaunched the Kozmo name in Los Angeles in 2018 as a low-price grocery service with minimum quantities.23

The clippings

What they said at the time

Press (9)
Kozmo.com provides something the Web has so far lacked: instant gratification.
Jim Williamson, analyst, IDC, in Forbes, Jun 22, 200016
Some decisions made early in the company’s development combined with current market conditions prevented Kozmo from overcoming the challenges associated with conquering the last mile.
Gerry Burdo, closing statement, Apr 11, 2001, as quoted by CNNfn3

  1. Rebecca Nidositko, Yankee Group, in Forbes, Jun 22, 200016

    The current business model, selling low-margin goods and delivering them for free, is not viable for the long term.

  2. Ken Cassar, Jupiter Communications, in CNET News, Feb 29, 200018

    Each time a Kozmo deliveryman leaves the warehouse, he has to be carrying multiple packages.

  3. Skip Trevathan, Kozmo chief operating officer, on the market, Computerworld, Jan 1, 200112

    All of a sudden, it was like waking up from a bad drunk.

  4. Vern Keenan, Keenan Vision, in CNET News, Apr 11, 20014

    This seemed like a dumb idea from the beginning.

  5. Mark Leitner, Kozmo vendor relations manager in Los Angeles, in The Globe and Mail, Apr 13, 20015

    Our burn rate was ridiculous.

  6. Doug Boag, a New York customer, in The Globe and Mail, Apr 13, 20015

    It was fun, but I always knew it was a matter of time.

  7. Chris Siragusa, to CNNMoney, Sep 14, 200520

    Someone ordered a pack of Mentos. Then two hours later they’d order a pint of ice cream.

Part 5 of 6

Verdict

Cause of death · What if · Afterlife

Cause of death

The autopsy

Tap a cause to see the evidence. The percentages are our editorial weighting. The evidence under each one is sourced.

Cause of death, by editorial weight

One square is one percentage point. The weights are our judgment, not a measurement.

  1. 40%Free delivery of very small orders
  2. 20%A New York model taken to eleven cities
  3. 15%Commitments made at the top of the market
  4. 15%The capital markets closed
  5. 10%The fixes came late
Data table
Cause of death, by editorial weight
CauseWeight
Free delivery of very small orders40%
A New York model taken to eleven cities20%
Commitments made at the top of the market15%
The capital markets closed15%
The fixes came late10%

In the fourth quarter of 1999 delivery expense was $12.84 an order against revenue of $11.92 and gross profit of $4.72 (derived from the IPO filing). There was no fee and no minimum, so a customer could order one item. A former executive later described a 50-cent pack of Mentos that cost $7 to deliver. The company said its average order was still $10 in early 2000.1111820

The service was designed around Manhattan’s density and bicycles. The filing itself warned that it had to be adapted to “geographic areas requiring distribution primarily by vans and cars.” Kozmo went from five cities to 11 in ten months, then closed Houston and San Diego. Its former operations chief said later that four cities were profitable and seven were not.1101521

The Starbucks agreement committed $150M over five years, about 43 times 1999 revenue (derived). Marketing and sales expense was $10.3M in 1999, nearly three times revenue. Leases committed a further $16.6M.119

The IPO was filed on March 21, 2000 and withdrawn on August 18. A $30M round promised in December 2000 lost a $6M investor, and the merger with PDQuick failed when PDQuick could not raise money. In its last week Kozmo was reported to be looking for as little as $3M.246

The delivery fee arrived in January 2001 and the catalogue and the retreat from the Starbucks deal in February and March, by which time the staff had been cut from 2,665 (derived) to about 1,500. The chief executive’s closing statement blamed “some decisions made early in the company’s development.”138912

Editorial judgment: the weights are an interpretive model by the Spectre Brands editors, not a measured quantity. The filing and the press of the time document the symptoms. How much each one contributed is a matter of opinion.

The fork in the road

What if…

Four decisions where the story could have gone differently. The “What if” panels are speculation, labeled as such.

What happened

Kozmo delivered free, with no minimum order, from March 1998 until January 2001, when it added a charge of about $2 on orders under $25 to $30. Investors expected the fee to raise $20M to $25M.11218

What if speculative

A fee and a minimum in 1999 would have meant fewer customers and a slower story to tell investors, and much less money lost per order. The 2005 successor MaxDelivery and the 2018 relaunch of the Kozmo name both started with a minimum order and a delivery fee.2023 Whether Kozmo could have raised $232M with those terms is another question.

What happened

The company opened in ten more cities between June 1999 and September 2000. In its last week it was reported to be ready to close all of them except New York and Boston in exchange for $3M.1614

What if speculative

A two-city Kozmo with a fee might have been a small, real business, which is roughly what MaxDelivery set out to be in lower Manhattan.20 It would not have justified a $150M Starbucks contract or a Nasdaq listing, and its investors had paid for a national company.

What happened

Kozmo filed for its IPO on March 21, 2000, days after the Nasdaq peaked, and withdrew the filing on August 18.12

What if speculative

An offering completed in late 1999 or January 2000 might have raised the $150M. Other delivery companies that did go public in that window still ran out of money in 2001. The cash would have bought time to fix the order economics, not the fix itself.

What happened

Talks to acquire the New York rival Urbanfetch ended in October 2000 after months of negotiation, and Urbanfetch left the consumer business days later.1112

What if speculative

A merger would have ended a giveaway war in Manhattan a few months sooner. A consultant quoted at the time thought it would help but would not “solve the fundamental problems of the business.”15 Kozmo got the Manhattan market to itself anyway and closed six months later.

Where are they now

The afterlife

Kozmo.com

  1. The company

    Liquidated

    Kozmo said on April 11, 2001 that it was liquidating its assets, and stressed that it was not filing for bankruptcy.36 What creditors and shareholders received is not in our sources. Amazon had invested $60M.1

  2. The name

    Revived

    Yummy Foods, LLC of Los Angeles has held two KOZMO trademark registrations since October 2011 and renewed them in March 2022.25 It relaunched kozmo.com as a grocery delivery site in Los Angeles in March 2018 and advertised 30-minute delivery in 2021.2328 The Internet Archive has no capture of the site after May 20, 2022, and it did not load for us in October 2026, so we cannot say the service is operating today.27

  3. The idea

    Imitated

    Former technology chief Chris Siragusa opened MaxDelivery in Tribeca by 2005: one-hour delivery, a $10 minimum and a $4.95 charge on orders under $50.20

  4. The founders

    Dispersed

    By 2008 Joseph Park had co-founded Askville, a question-and-answer site owned by Amazon, and Yong Kang was listed as working in investment banking at Lehman Brothers.21

  5. The employees

    Laid off

    About 1,100 people lost their jobs on the last day, most of them couriers and warehouse staff. Only salaried employees, about a quarter, were offered severance.67

  6. The documentary

    On film

    Wonsuk Chin’s documentary e-Dreams followed Park and Kang through the company’s rise and fall. It is in the catalogue of the distributor 7th Art Releasing.29

  7. The drop boxes

    Removed

    The 500 orange return boxes in Starbucks stores were to be taken out in the last week of March 2001, two weeks before the company closed.8

Who owned the name

The original company let its trademark application lapse. Two later applicants picked the name up.

  1. 1997

    Kozmo.com, Inc.

    Founded in New York by Joseph Park and Yong Kang.1

  2. Dec 1999

    Kozmo.com, Inc.

    Applies to register KOZMO.COM. The application is abandoned on December 7, 2000 for failure to respond to the trademark office.26

  3. Apr 2001

    Kozmo.com, Inc., in liquidation

    Operations end on April 11, 2001. Who bought the domain and other assets is not in our sources.3

  4. Sep 2007

    EXIM Brands LLC

    An Evanston, Illinois company applies for KOZMO.COM. Abandoned in June 2008.26

  5. Oct 2011

    Yummy Foods, LLC

    Registers KOZMO for online grocery retail and delivery. What it paid for the domain, if anything, is not public.2225

    not disclosed
  6. Mar 2018

    Yummy Foods, LLC

    Relaunches Kozmo.com in Los Angeles through its Yummy.com grocery business.23

  7. Today

    Yummy Foods, LLC

    Both registrations are live, renewed March 1, 2022. The website did not load in October 2026.2527

Data table
Who owned the name
WhenOwnerWhat happenedPrice
1997Kozmo.com, Inc.Founded in New York by Joseph Park and Yong Kang.
Dec 1999Kozmo.com, Inc.Applies to register KOZMO.COM. The application is abandoned on December 7, 2000 for failure to respond to the trademark office.
Apr 2001Kozmo.com, Inc., in liquidationOperations end on April 11, 2001. Who bought the domain and other assets is not in our sources.
Sep 2007EXIM Brands LLCAn Evanston, Illinois company applies for KOZMO.COM. Abandoned in June 2008.
Oct 2011Yummy Foods, LLCRegisters KOZMO for online grocery retail and delivery. What it paid for the domain, if anything, is not public.not disclosed
Mar 2018Yummy Foods, LLCRelaunches Kozmo.com in Los Angeles through its Yummy.com grocery business.
TodayYummy Foods, LLCBoth registrations are live, renewed March 1, 2022. The website did not load in October 2026.
USPTO trademark status records2526, CNNMoney22, Supermarket News23 and the Form S-1.1

Sources & data notes

Show your work

The primary source is the registration statement Kozmo filed with the SEC in March 2000 and withdrew in August. Everything after December 1999 comes from contemporary press, read in full, and from trademark and web archive records. Where a publisher’s page blocks automated readers we cite the Internet Archive copy we read.

  1. Kozmo.com, Inc., Form S-1 registration statement, filed with the SEC on Mar 21, 2000 (File No. 333-32864). Financial statements for 1997–1999, quarterly results and order counts for 1999, financing history, agreements, management and principal stockholders.
  2. Kozmo.com, Inc., request to withdraw the registration statement (Form RW), filed with the SEC on Aug 18, 2000.
  3. CNNfn staff and wire reports, “Kozmo.com shuts down”, Apr 12, 2001 (Internet Archive copy of money.cnn.com).
  4. Greg Sandoval, “Kozmo to shut down, lay off 1,100”, CNET News, Apr 11, 2001 (Internet Archive copy).
  5. “Kozmo’s demise saps on-line home delivery business”, The Globe and Mail, Apr 13, 2001.
  6. “Report: Kozmo’s Last Days a Scramble for Funding”, E-Commerce Times, Apr 13, 2001, summarizing a VentureWire report.
  7. Bloomberg News via Hive News, “Kozmo.com Ceases Operations, Fires Entire 1,100-Person Staff”, Home Media Magazine, Apr 12, 2001.
  8. “Kozmo Cans Starbucks Drop-Off Plan”, E-Commerce Times, Mar 27, 2001.
  9. Todd R. Weiss, “Kozmo.com lays off workers”, Computerworld, Feb 28, 2001.
  10. “Kozmo.com Cuts Staff, Exits Markets”, E-Commerce Times, Jan 9, 2001.
  11. Linda Harrison, “Kozmo dumps Houston and San Diego”, The Register, Jan 8, 2001.
  12. Erik Sherman, “Falling Dot-Com Star”, Computerworld, Jan 1, 2001.
  13. Business Wire, “Kozmo.com and Equal Rights Center Announce Initiative to Bridge the Digital Divide”, Dec 5, 2000 (Internet Archive copy of The Free Library).
  14. IDG News Service, “Kozmo.com widens delivery areas in four U.S. cities”, CNN.com, Sep 11, 2000.
  15. Jon Springer, “Kozmo.com Reduces Staff, Looks for Partner”, Supermarket News, Aug 28, 2000.
  16. “Kozmo.com Pedaling To The Precipice?”, Forbes.com, Jun 22, 2000.
  17. Elliot Zaret and Brock N. Meeks, “Kozmo’s digital dividing lines”, MSNBC, Apr 11, 2000 (Internet Archive copy).
  18. Greg Sandoval, “Kozmo may deliver itself to the public”, CNET News, Feb 29, 2000 (Internet Archive copy).
  19. “Kozmo.com Pays Starbucks $150 Million in Marketing Alliance”, InternetNews, Feb 14, 2000.
  20. “Rebirth of Kozmo.com, kind of”, CNNMoney, Sep 14, 2005 (Internet Archive copy).
  21. “Where are they now: Kozmo.com”, The Industry Standard, May 29, 2008 (Internet Archive copy). A retrospective.
  22. Adrian Covert, “Kozmo.com is back from the dead”, CNNMoney, Sep 25, 2013 (Internet Archive copy).
  23. Mark Hamstra, “Yummy.com re-launches Kozmo for bulk deliveries”, Supermarket News, Mar 21, 2018.
  24. “Kozmo.com Launches Online Grocery Delivery In LA”, socaltech.com, Mar 21, 2018.
  25. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark Status & Document Retrieval: KOZMO, serial 85272462 (registration 4041920, retail) and serial 85272469 (registration 4041921, delivery), owner Yummy Foods, LLC. Filed Mar 21, 2011, registered Oct 18, 2011, renewed Mar 1, 2022. Read Oct 8, 2026.
  26. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark Status & Document Retrieval: KOZMO.COM, serial 75882671 (Kozmo.com, Inc., filed Dec 28, 1999, abandoned Dec 7, 2000), serial 77279713 (EXIM Brands LLC, filed Sep 14, 2007, abandoned Jun 19, 2008) and serial 86158306 (Yummy Foods, LLC, a stylized mark registered 2014 and cancelled Dec 30, 2021). Read Oct 8, 2026.
  27. Internet Archive Wayback Machine captures of kozmo.com: Dec 1, 1999, Apr 8, 2000, Apr 18, 2001, Feb 28, 2020 and Dec 9, 2021; capture list from the CDX index, read Oct 8, 2026.
  28. “Kozmo.com Delivers Groceries in 30 Minutes!”, YouTube, published by the channel Kozmo Dot Com on Jul 30, 2021, with the channel’s description.
  29. 7th Art Releasing, catalogue page for “e-Dreams”, directed by Wonsuk Chin. The distributor’s own description of the film.
  30. YouTube uploads of Kozmo.com commercials: “Kozmo Commercial 1999” (90s Commercials, uploaded Apr 12, 2017); “godfather” and “Lucy” (Media Vision Advertising, uploaded Aug 4, 2021); “Jackie Hoffman - kozmo.com commercial” (Dean Kensler, uploaded Dec 19, 2013). Titles, dates and descriptions are the uploaders’.
Data notes (10)

Data notes

Derived: Per-order figures are quarterly revenue, gross profit and delivery expense divided by orders in the quarter, all from the S-1: for Q4 1999, $2,117K ÷ 177,581 = $11.92, $838K ÷ 177,581 = $4.72 and $2,281K ÷ 177,581 = $12.84; the other quarters are calculated the same way.1 $7.51 lost per $1 of sales is $26,370K ÷ $3,509K. Marketing at nearly three times revenue is $10,252K ÷ $3,509K = 2.92. Total 1999 costs of $30.038M are $1.997M + $28.041M. 2,665 employees is 445 salaried + 2,220 hourly on March 10, 2000. The Starbucks total of $150M is $15M + $25M + $35M + $35M + $40M, and 43 times revenue is $150M ÷ $3.509M = 42.7. The 36-fold rise in the share price is $7.55 ÷ $0.21. $267.7M is the sum of shares × price for Series A to F; 4.0 million Series F shares (3 × 1,323,977) were issued for agreements and stock, not cash. Eight cities in April 2000 is the six in the S-1 plus Chicago and Atlanta.117

The card’s sparkline: The series 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 9, 0 is the number of cities served in March 1998, June, September and November 1999, February, April and September 2000, January 2001 and April 2001. It mixes the S-1 (to February 2000)1, press reports10141517 and one derived point (eight).

Company claims, not audited: 400,000 members, an average order of $25 or $30, and profits in New York, San Francisco and Boston in December 2000 are statements by the company to reporters.7911 No financial statements for 2000 or 2001 were published.

Conflicts between sources: The average order in early 2001 is $25 in a Bloomberg report and $30 in The Register.711 The fee introduced in January 2001 is “a $2 delivery charge” on orders below “the $25 to $30 range” in Computerworld and $1.99 on orders under $30 in a 2008 retrospective.1221 The closing count of facilities is 16 distribution centers in the Bloomberg report; other accounts give other numbers, which we have not used.7 Private investment was “reported at $268 million” by Computerworld and “more than $250 million” by The Industry Standard; the S-1 gives $232.3M of cash plus $10.0M of securities as of March 2000.11221 A trade report says Kozmo hoped to raise “as much as $160 million” in the IPO; the filing’s fee table says $150,000,000.115 Forbes gives the 1999 loss as $26.3M; the filing says $26.37M.116 Sources call Chris Siragusa both group vice president of technology and chief technology officer.1220

Unverified, and left out or flagged: A former employee told The Globe and Mail that the company was “burning $1-million (U.S.) a day”; nothing in the filing supports a rate that high in 1999, and we have no figures for 2000, so we do not use it as a fact.5 The Register’s line that Kozmo “cut 3,000 staff” in mid-2000 looks like an error and is not used.11 The distributor’s page for e-Dreams says the company reached 3,000 employees and collapsed in “April 2000”; the first is unconfirmed and the second is wrong by a year.29 Reports that Kozmo had paid Starbucks $15M before ending the agreement could not be traced to a source we read; the S-1 only says $15M was due in 2000.1 The founders’ origin story is as told by CNET.4 The exact date Joseph Park stepped down as chief executive is not in our sources; Gerry Burdo is called CEO in a release of December 5, 2000.13

Is the name in use today?: We classify Kozmo as a ghost because the KOZMO registrations are live and were renewed in 2022, and their owner operated a site under the name from 2018.2325 We could not confirm that the service still runs: the Internet Archive’s capture list for kozmo.com ends on May 20, 2022, and the address did not respond from our network on October 8, 2026.27 If the registrations lapse, the tier should change to dead.

Commercials: Air dates of the commercials are the uploaders’ or are unknown; the years shown for three of them are approximate, as their captions say.30 The identification of Jackie Hoffman is the uploader’s. The documentary embed is a third-party upload.

How we read the sources: SEC filings were read in full from EDGAR. Press articles were fetched and read as text on October 8, 2026; CNN, CNET, MSNBC, Business Wire and Industry Standard pieces were read in Internet Archive copies, which are the URLs cited. We did not have access to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal coverage of April 2001 and cite neither.

Images: The four screenshots and the logo crop are from Internet Archive captures of kozmo.com.27 The December 1999 capture is missing several images. We found no freely licensed photograph of a Kozmo courier or warehouse on Wikimedia Commons, so the couriers appear only as original drawings.

General knowledge: That the Nasdaq Composite peaked on March 10, 2000. That Webvan, which went public in November 1999, ceased operations in July 2001. That e-Dreams was released in 2001.

More post-mortems

Pets.com

1998 – 2000

Dead
Unit economics
270 days from IPO to wind-down

Webvan

1996 – 2001

Dead
Overexpansion
$827M cumulative net loss, 1998 to Mar 2001

Groupon

2008 – present

Ghost
A fad that faded
−84% revenue, 2014 peak to 2025 (derived)

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